For decades, Nadia Bajalieh worked alongside first her husband and later her three sons in the family’s various Birmingham restaurants, from Sol’s Sandwich Shop & Deli to Slice Pizza & Brew.

They didn’t know what to do without her.

“She was the rock within our businesses,” Chris Bajalieh, Nadia’s middle son, says. “She raised us to be strong and to work together and to work hard and to give back to the community and be involved in the community through the restaurants.

“She spread her love through food,” he adds. “That’s what we learned being raised by her.”

Nadia Ayda Bajalieh – the matriarch of one of Birmingham’s most beloved restaurant families – died March 8 after a courageous battle with breast cancer. She lived to be 78.

“Make no mistake, she was the driving force behind all of our businesses,” Jason Bajalieh, Nadia’s youngest son, says. “Without her feistiness, her faith, and her love for her family, there is no telling where we would be.”

Born in 1946 in the Palestinian city of Ramallah, Nadia immigrated to America with her family when she was 3 years old. The family settled in Jacksonville, Fla., where she graduated from Lee High School.

She later met Saleh “Sol” Bajalieh, who had also come to the U.S. from Ramallah, at a Middle Eastern social event in Knoxville, Tenn.

Although Nadia lived in Jacksonville and Sol in Birmingham, they began a long-distance courtship and got married in 1971.

After Nadia moved to Birmingham, she and Sol soon started a family, raising their three sons – Jason, Chris and their big brother, Jeff — in a four-bedroom ranch-style house on 55th Street in Crestwood.

For nearly a quarter-century Nadia and her husband worked side-by-side at the original Sol’s Sandwich Shop & Deli in the basement of downtown Birmingham’s John Hand Building.

After the building was sold, Sol and Nadia had to close Sol’s in 1994, and they later ran the employee cafeteria at the U.S. Pipe and Foundry plant in North Birmingham’s Collegeville neighborhood.

One July morning in 2004, though, the world came crashing down on Nadia and her three sons when Sol died following a massive heart attack. He was 57.

It was Nadia who held everyone close.

‘Always by our side’

Four years after losing her husband, Nadia was there to help her boys when they opened a second Sol’s Sandwich Shop & Deli in their late father’s honor in the Two North Twentieth building on Morris Avenue.

The Sol’s menu featured many of Nadia’s greatest hits, and regulars learned to circle their lunch calendars for the days she served her famous meatloaf and her legendary lasagna.

“She didn’t use recipe cards,” Chris recalls. “She would go strictly by her heart. She put her heart into what she cooked.”

Since she didn’t write down her recipes, the brothers started videotaping their mother as she cooked, so they could remember how she did it.

Sol’s Sandwich Shop & Deli closed during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 – this time for good – but by then, the Bajalieh brothers had already started to grow their Slice Pizza & Brew concept, another business their mother played a key role in helping them develop.

“She helped us starting out – she and Jason mainly – on the recipes for Slice,” Chris remembers.

Then, in December 2021, the Bajalieh family suffered another tragic loss when Jeff Bajalieh, Nadia’s firstborn, died following a three-year fight with cancer. He was 47.

Again, Nadia was the family rock.

“Chris and I have experienced a great amount of loss in our lives,” Jason says, “but Nadia was always there, always by our side to carry us and encourage us.”

‘Our bond will be even tighter’

In early 2022, about a month after Jeff died, Nadia was diagnosed with breast cancer.

She endured a brutal three-year battle of her own, but she never let on how much she was hurting, her sons say.

Nadia’s resilience – and her quiet grace in the face of losing first a husband and then a son – is something her boys will always remember about their mother.

And something that will make them stronger.

“Our ties got tighter as we experienced some untimely deaths in our family,” Jason says. “Especially now, with it being just me and Chris, just the two of us, our bond will be even tighter.”

The night before Nadia died, her daughter-in-law, Bradley Bajalieh, Jason’s wife, was with her in her hospital room. The family members took turns staying with her, and this night, it was Bradley’s shift.

Out of the blue, Nadia told Bradley that, after she passed, she was going to send an eagle down to keep an eye on the family.

Bradley thought an eagle was an odd choice. Why not butterflies? Or bluebirds?

“I was like, ‘Well, Nadia, maybe you could send something else because there’s not a lot of eagles around here,’” Bradley recalls. “And she said, ‘Nope, I’m sending eagles.’ And we giggled, and then just blew it off.”

That next morning, though, as she was tucking Nadia’s covers in while she slept, Bradley looked up at the TV in her hospital room. The “Today” show was airing a segment on the viral video of the two California bald eagles welcoming three baby eaglets to the world.

It was like a wink and a nod from Nadia that life goes on, and everything is going to be all right.

The memorial service for Nadia Ayda Bajalieh will be Wednesday, March 12, at Saint George Melkite Greek-Catholic Church, 425 16th Ave. South, in Birmingham. Visitation will begin at 10 a.m., with the service following at 11 a.m. The Mercy Meal will follow in the church hall.